"Here's the bottom line: There's a very good chance that the public will never know what it doesn't know. 'Those Americans out there who are waiting for Robert Mueller to give us the full truth of what happened in terms of the Russian attack on the US,' Corn warns, 'we're likely not to be satisfied."

LOL. Big nothingburger. No 'collusion', no impeachment. Once again, thanks to a steady diet of mainstream corporate media bullshit on this for the past two years, you got played!

Be Careful What You Ask For: Wasting Time With Manafort, Cohen and Russiagate

"...The Democrats much prefer to have Trump in office to kick around politically. The most likely scenario is that they will make a cloakroom agreement with Republicans not to go too far, while they continue to whip up Trump-Putin 'Russiagate' fever among their constituency. They will continue to stoke anticipation of a smoking 'collusion' gun from Mueller, which will probably never come. The Democrats are not really after impeaching Trump, they are after stringing along their progressive voters.

In the meantime, the delightful Trump-effect - his constant embarrassment of American political self-righteousness and discomfiting of both political parties - will continue apace. We are now entering a turning point in the bizarre and flimsy 'Russiagate' narrative. I've been asked to comment on that a number of times over the past two years, and each time I or one of my fellow commentators would say, 'Why are we still talking about this?' It was originally conjured up as a Clinton campaign attack on Trump, but, to my and many others' surprise and chagrin, it somehow morphed into the central theme of political opposition to Trump's presidency.

Now, with the Manafort and Cohen convictions the Russiagate discourse is moving to a new stage, and it's unlikely that we will ever stop talking about it, as long as Trump is president. Nothing good can come of it. Our country is in, and on the verge of, multiple crises that threatens to destroy it. That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not one of them. Political time is precious.

Donald Trump is a horrid political specimen. I witnessed his flourishing into apex narcissism and corruption over decades in New York City, as chronicled by the dogged reporter, Wayne Barrett, and I would be surprised if there weren’t financial crimes in his closet that any competent prosecutor could ferret out. Anyone who knows his history knows that this is the kind of dirt the Mueller investigation was most likely to find on Donald Trump; anyone who’s honest knows that this is the kind of dirt it was meant to find. Russiagate was a pretext to dig around everywhere in his closet.

Wait a minute. Russiagate is a pretext for digging up other dirt from Trump's closet? I thought the anti-anti-Trump analysis was that Russiagate was the whole point of the investigation, with the geopolitical aim of kickstarting a new Cold War. Now, we're hearing that the end goal is really just demonizing Trump himself?

"...The name of the lawyer who implicated Donald Trump in the commission of federal crimes is Cohen. The name of the publisher who has agreed to tell investigators how he turned his newspaper into a clearinghouse for Cohen's payments to women is Pecker. And the name of the accountant who has been granted immunity in order to testify about the role played by the Trump organization in Cohen's endeavors is Weisselberg. The common denominators of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg, beside their willingness to do whatever it takes for Trump in the past and their apparent willingness to inform on him now, is that all three are indisputably and recognizably Jewish.

American Jewish organizations were quick to call out Trump for the suspected anti-Semitic messages in his statements and campaign [ pre-election]...With the prodding of Netanyahu and the vouching of Sheldon Adelson...Trump's disturbing words were swept under the carpet of his decidedly pro-Israeli policies. The Jewishness of the three former Trump aides who have now decided to testify against him could mar the artificial tranquility and, in a worst-case scenario, spark a dangerous wave of anti-Semitism. American Jewish leaders would do well to prepare for such a stormy day, as would Netanyahu, who has placed all of his prestige on Trump and the American right.

If Netanyahu is forced to choose between the adminisration's pro-settler, anti-Palestinian policies and his duty to fight anti-Semitism and stand up for beleagured American Jews, they would do well to start seeking their salvation elsewhere."

Not entirely impossible that people with a pre-existing hatred of Jews could latch onto a scandal involving Jews to furhter their agenda, and it is good for the rest of us to be vigilant about these things. But if this is being posted as an example of why the investigation is a bad thing, well, that doesn't work. You can't expect a criminal investigation to be shut down just because certain members of a vulnerable ethnicity become involved.

And I'll also say that I think it takes a bit of shoe-horning to describe Pecker as fitting the stereotype of a Jewish smut-peddler. The National Enquirer is considered low-brow, but not really the equivalent of Al Goldstein's Screw Magazine.

Given how the topic has been weaponized, as in the case of Jeremy Corbyn or here at home with Zionist attacks on a Muslim MP and a Palestinian activist for 'anti-Semitism', the question has validity. On its face the writer fears a backlash and that is the case he makes, and why I posted it. One hopes he's mistaken but perhaps he would know better than I.

Why not write a letter to Haaretz and ask them if 'their pre-existing hatred of Jews caused them to latch onto a scandal involving Jews to further their agenda?' Perhaps also write to Washington Post or New York Times or CNN and ask them if they have also 'latched on to this scandal to further their agendas'? Seems like worthwhile questions to ask? I'd certainly be interested in the answers.

Why not write a letter to Haaretz and ask them if 'their pre-existing hatred of Jews caused them to latch onto a scandal involving Jews to further their agenda?' Perhaps also write to Washington Post or New York Times or CNN and ask them if they have also 'latched on to this scandal to further their agendas'? Seems like worthwhile questions to ask? I'd certainly be interested in the answers.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Can anything I've written be used to furher the idea that I think Haaretz and the NYT are among those who could be accused of anti-semitism? Even as an ad absurdum of my argument, that doesn't make any sense.

To reiterate, I agree with Haaretz that the case could provoke anti-semitism, though I'd qualify it by saying that the anti-semites would have to already be inclined that way. And I don't think the anti-semitism would invalidate the investigation itself.

And just to be clear, if I'm reading Haaretz correctly, it's the ANTI-Mueller side who are likely to harbour anti-semites, because they'd be mad at Cohen etc for tunring against their hero.

Well, in truth it didn't really make sense to me either but I thought that might be your implication nonetheless and attempted to answer it as best I could. People here think all sorts of things that make no sense to me. I've become rather used to it. I have no idea how the vagaries of this media induced madness are likely to manifest. It seems many have lost their minds over it down there and some here as well. And yes, I think since Democrats are good and Republicans are bad, or so we are told, that Haaretz suggests 'the deplorables' are dangerous and inclined to anti-Semitism. As for your earlier point about investigations not being stopped just because this 'vulnerable ethnicity' is involved, I don't think the writer is suggesting it should be. But one could point out that in Israel with respect to crimes against Palestinians it happens all the time.

Donald Trump is a horrid political specimen. I witnessed his flourishing into apex narcissism and corruption over decades in New York City, as chronicled by the dogged reporter, Wayne Barrett, and I would be surprised if there weren’t financial crimes in his closet that any competent prosecutor could ferret out. Anyone who knows his history knows that this is the kind of dirt the Mueller investigation was most likely to find on Donald Trump; anyone who’s honest knows that this is the kind of dirt it was meant to find. Russiagate was a pretext to dig around everywhere in his closet.

Wait a minute. Russiagate is a pretext for digging up other dirt from Trump's closet? I thought the anti-anti-Trump analysis was that Russiagate was the whole point of the investigation, with the geopolitical aim of kickstarting a new Cold War. Now, we're hearing that the end goal is really just demonizing Trump himself?

Since when is catching a crook demonizing? Russian money is the fulcrum of the case. Money laundering, bank fraud and tax evasion flows from it.

Donald Trump is a horrid political specimen. I witnessed his flourishing into apex narcissism and corruption over decades in New York City, as chronicled by the dogged reporter, Wayne Barrett, and I would be surprised if there weren’t financial crimes in his closet that any competent prosecutor could ferret out. Anyone who knows his history knows that this is the kind of dirt the Mueller investigation was most likely to find on Donald Trump; anyone who’s honest knows that this is the kind of dirt it was meant to find. Russiagate was a pretext to dig around everywhere in his closet.

Wait a minute. Russiagate is a pretext for digging up other dirt from Trump's closet? I thought the anti-anti-Trump analysis was that Russiagate was the whole point of the investigation, with the geopolitical aim of kickstarting a new Cold War. Now, we're hearing that the end goal is really just demonizing Trump himself?

Since when is catching a crook demonizing? Russian money is the fulcrum of the case. Money laundering, bank fraud and tax evasion flows from it.

Yeah, I don't think Mueller is demonizing Trump at all. I'm just saying that Kavanagh's analysis in that article is the reverse of what is normally argued by the anti-anti-Trump crowd(by which I mean, left-wingers who think going after Trump is a red herring). They normally say that Trump is being targeted as a means to demonizing Russia; Kavanaugh says that Russia is being targeted as a means to demonizing Trump.

As I've said before, I think that if the "deep state" were simply trying to get a war drum going against Russia, they'd do something other than fabricate outright lies about a sitting president. There's all sorts of stuff you could concoct, that doesn't undermine the White House, if that were your agenda.

The only other explanation for this being nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt would be that Trump himself is such a threat to the powers-that-be, they'll do anything to bring him down. I don't find that one very credible either.

That column by Shalev is ridiculous. He must think he’s writing about France in the 1890s.

Well, some people on the alt-right ARE sort of like anti-Dreyfusards. But the thing is, any anti-semitic backlash is going to be limited to those quarters, and probably not even the majority of that. I'm not an American Jew, but if I were, I don't think an uptick in anti-Jewish memes on the Pepe Frog message board would be enough to get me to leave the country.

As for special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, 53 per cent of those quizzed in the poll believe the president has tried to interfere in the investigation, while 35 per cent say he hasn’t

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According to Friday’s poll results, almost 65 per cent of Americans think Trump should not fire the attorney general, while 19 per cent say he should.

David Frum, much like his old boss George W. Bush (and the late John McCain), should not be allowed to rhetorically redeem himself by condemning Trump after helping the previous worst president ever launch the Iraq war. Soliciting his opinion on anything is like having Osama bin Laden appear on a talk show to condemn ISIS.

An anonymous op-ed column in The New York Times, purportedly by a senior Trump official, claims that an internal “resistance” is keeping Trump from going completely off the rails and dragging the country with him.

Arriving the day after the first reports about Bob Woodward’s new book Fear: Trump in the White House, the op-ed seems almost too well timed. It confirms Woodward’s sources, who say much the same thing — that Trump’s aides despise him but hang on to save the Republic from their boss, and their boss from himself.

starting at around 1:03:00 here, obama makes the point that even if there are people in the white house "protecting" the republic from the worst of the trumpian madnes, that is not how checks & balances are supposed to work. it should be the congress holding the president to account; and if they won't then the people holding the congress to account.

"Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Joe Lauria, the editor in chief of Consortium News and Ted Rall, an award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist, to discuss the implications of the anonymous op-ed published in the New York Times."

I don't think the op-ed was written by a Trump official but by the NYT itself. It's what they do.

"Brian Becker and John Kiriakou are joined by Joe Lauria, the editor in chief of Consortium News and Ted Rall, an award-winning editorial cartoonist and columnist, to discuss the implications of the anonymous op-ed published in the New York Times."

I don't think the op-ed was written by a Trump official but by the NYT itself. It's what they do.